A friend of the family asked me to make her wedding cake for her and I jumped at the chance as I have never made a tiered cake before.  I wanted to make it reasonably simple as it was my first one and also the week of the wedding was when I had booked myself on the 6 day intensive cake decorating course run by Squires Kitchen. Yes I am crazy...

My friend asked for fruit cake which made it easier as I could make the cakes well in advance.  I didn't come across too many problems but I learnt an awful lot from the experience.

Here is my finished cake which I was very pleased with and I was told it tasted very good too.

The whole cake was decorated with sugarpaste including the roses. On my recent training course we learnt how to make Paddi Clarks 1 minute roses and this came in very useful, although the 1 minute roses took me about 2 hours instead of 11 minutes due to my lack of experience... but I got there in the end.  In future I will be more likely to use flower paste or add a bit of flower paste to the sugarpaste so it is a bit stronger and sets a bit harder.  Unfortunately I didn't cover making flowers with flower paste on my training course until the day after the wedding.  The roses still looked good though and I was pleased with them.

A few things I will keep in mind for next time...

• Making sure the cake is level once the dowels have been inserted:  I made the mistake of not cutting a couple of them short enough so I had to take them back out and cut a bit off which wasn't too bad but a bit awkward.
• Make everything I can well in advance especially the flowers.
• The cake is going to weigh a ton... I knew it would weigh a lot but I had no idea quite how much and I was very lucky to have someone to help me to the car and out at the wedding venue.
• Make sure the cakes are bottom up so that the tops are nice and flat.  I forgot this for the top tier and it meant I had a few bumps.  I managed to smooth them out pretty much but the top tier wasn't as flat as I would have liked.
• Use all the wonderful tips I learnt on the Squires Kitchen cake decorating course.
• and finally... not to book a 6 day intensive cake decorating course the week I am making a wedding cake!

Next time I will be a bit more adventurous...